


You Exist

by NanakiBH



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Established Relationship, Hugs, Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon, Sentimental, Snow, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 18:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13507737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: One day that gives meaning to all the rest.





	You Exist

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Yusuke!!
> 
> C-C-Combo breaking my streak of other fics for Yusuke. So here's something nice and pleasant. A little emotional. Will probably make you feel warm and fuzzy. I have more shukita on the horizon, so look forward to that.

The snow glistened with a transparent blue shimmer beneath the streetlights.

Sitting on a bench outside the Kosei dorm, Yusuke traced the line of the sidewalk with his eyes from one side of the street to the other, as it curved and followed the street around the corner. Occasionally, students returning from cram school walked past him, adding their footprints to the freshly-fallen snow. Like a painting in motion, each snowflake seemed to change the image before him, constantly introducing a new perspective.

He wondered if he could capture the feeling of that moment. Even if he carefully selected the right shades of white and blue and mixed them together to recreate that nighttime atmosphere, he wondered if the viewer would feel the same sort of curiously happy anxiousness he felt inside. He couldn't help but wonder if the students who passed him were able to see the same sight.

He'd passed by it many times with hardly a thought. Once, the same view had also appeared ordinary to his own eyes, sometimes lonely.

And yet, even as he sat there alone, holding his phone between his gloved hands, he found it difficult to reconnect with the lonely feelings of his past self. There was no question of what had changed. He knew.

 

“Yusuke!”

 

He raised his head at the sound of his name and smiled when he saw who had come from around the corner.

Breathing heavily, leaving little white clouds in the air behind him with each step, Akira hurried toward him. He dotted the street with his own footprints before making it to the other side where Yusuke waited.

“Hey,” he said, adjusting the heavy-looking bag under his arm. His wide smile faltered slightly as he looked around, up and down the snow-covered street. “What are you doing out here? D-Don't tell me you were waiting for me out in the cold this whole time...?”

Moving over to make room, Yusuke patted the spot next to him. Akira took a seat and set his bag in his lap.

“I thought that this would be a better setting for our meeting,” Yusuke explained.

He raised his eyes back to the street and tried to take in each falling snowflake. Trying to count them before they reached the ground was an exercise in futility, but he didn't find it discouraging. He only felt more stubbornly determined to capture that moment precisely as he saw it.

If he took it all in and then painted everything he saw down to the finest detail, would that have been enough? It felt like it would require more than that.

He looked to his side and noticed Akira also staring at the street with a deeply contemplative look on his face. When Akira realized that he was being looked at, he met his eyes and smiled. “Just trying to see what you're seeing,” he said. “I missed doing that. Back home, I found myself wondering what you'd think about everything. You ought to visit when you get the chance. There are a lot of sights you'd probably like to see.”

It was difficult to look away from that smile. Even the beauty of the gently falling snow seemed to pale in comparison. Somehow, the formless feelings within his chest seemed visible in the warmth glistening in Akira's bright eyes.

Yusuke lifted a hand, clutched the front of his coat, and closed his eyes as he breathed in the cold evening air, trying to commit to memory the sight that remained on the back of his eyelids.

His eyes opened when he heard a quiet rustling.

“Oh... Whoops.” Akira laughed and unzipped his bag. Out popped Morgana, yowling and gasping for breath.

Narrowing his round eyes, Morgana turned to glare at Akira accusingly. “You were just going to leave me in there again, weren't you? I know you want to have a romantic reunion with Yusuke, but I'm here, too!” He turned away then and grumbled quietly. “I also want to wish Yusuke a happy birthday...”

 

Birthday...?

 

“Oh.”

 

They suddenly became quiet.

Akira stared at him. “'Oh'? What do you mean...?”

“I forgot it was my birthday,” Yusuke said. “Is _that_ why you suddenly decided to visit?”

Morgana sat up straight in the bag and looked at him with a flabbergasted face. “ _Whaaaat?_ What kind of person would forget their own birthd-...” He abruptly paused, however, and reconsidered his words. “I guess I don't have much room to talk if I don't even know when my own birthday is. But still! That's really unusual, isn't it?”

Yusuke looked between them and lifted a brow in confusion. “You made that long trip just for my birthday?”

“Of course,” Akira said.

“Just for something like that...?”

For some reason, Akira looked at him with his own look of disbelief, a perplexed twist between his brows. “I wanted to see you for a while. Your birthday sounded like the perfect time for us to visit. I didn't have time to get a gift, but I promise I'm going to think of something. If it's for you, it has to be something unique.” When he realized that his enthusiasm wasn't quite being received, he released a breath, appearing to be at a loss. “If you don't like celebrating your birthday or something, it's okay. I get it.”

Was that what he thought?

“That's not it. I'm just surprised,” Yusuke said. “I suppose I just... didn't think it was important enough to remember.”

He couldn't rightly remember the last time he celebrated his birthday with anyone. Naturally, he couldn't remember far back enough to recall a birthday spent with his mother. When he was young, Madarame had celebrated it with dinner and a few presents – just simple, useful things. He probably tried his best, Yusuke felt. The gifts stopped when he became a teenager. Then it was just “happy birthday”. He never told the other pupils when his birthday was, so they never celebrated it with him, either.

It was okay. It never meant a lot to him. He never expected anything.

He knew that birthdays were supposed to be important, but... He just couldn't understand why someone else would care about his birthday more than he would. Yusuke was glad that Akira decided to visit, but he really didn't need to go out of his way for him. A gift wasn't necessary, and he didn't need a frivolous party or anything like that.

Akira and Morgana looked at each other, exchanging nervous-looking glances.

Rubbing his neck, Akira sheepishly looked back up. “Sorry. We're probably the ones who are making a bigger deal out of it than it really is. It's just... Don't you find it kind of sad?”

Yusuke tilted his head. “Not really... Why?”

“Now that I think about it, it feels weird because I don't really care that much about my own birthday, either. But, I think I understand why people care about remembering other people's birthdays. What might seem like any other day to you is actually really special to someone else. Yeah, it's just a number on the calendar, but it's special because... That's when you were born.” Akira's voice fell near the end and he glanced away, acting embarrassed.

Yusuke continued to watch him, expecting there to be more, and Morgana also turned in Akira's arms to stare. Their intense attention must have made him more embarrassed. His face turned a little red and he continued, trying to explain.

“I know, that probably sounds really stupid and obvious. It's just – I'm happy that this day exists. It might just be a day, but you're what makes this day special, the fact that you exist.”

Ah.

It was that simple, wasn't it?

“I see,” Yusuke said quietly, nodding to himself. His hand instinctively moved to his side, but the sketchbook that would have normally been there was missing, left in his dorm room. He put his hands back in his lap and looked back out at the snowy scene he wished to paint. “So it's like that...”

It made so much sense. He felt like a fool for not having realized it on his own. Yet, with the new information he obtained from Akira's insightfulness, he wondered if it would have even been possible for him to realize it without his help.

“Looks like you sparked an epiphany,” Morgana said.

Yusuke gestured at the street in front of them. “Before you came, I was thinking about how lovely this view is. Don't you think so?”

Holding a hand to his chin, Akira gave it another look, squinting. “I tried to see what you were seeing, but... I'm not sure I get it.” With a light shrug, he gave up. Dusting away a bit of fresh snow that had fallen between them, he moved himself nearer. Raising his hands, Akira formed a frame with his fingers and peered at Yusuke through the space between. “I think I'm more interested in this,” he said, “being next to you.” He lowered his hands, smiling to himself, and looked at the street. “For some reason, I get the feeling that if you were to paint this, I'd be able to see it the way you do.”

“I think you already do. In here.” Yusuke lifted a hand and lightly placed it over Akira's chest. Even through his glove and Akira's coat, he could feel the gentle, rhythmic beat of his heart. “I was looking for an ingredient that's invisible to the eye. I could feel it inside myself, but I wasn't sure how I was supposed to express it for others to understand. I got caught up, thinking too literally. Thank you, Akira. You made me realize that.”

“H-Huh...?”

He sounded a bit bewildered.

Perhaps his manner of speaking had become too esoteric. Without his friends around him to talk with, that old habit must have crept up on him without his notice.

He tried to find new words.

“I wasn't sitting here because I was looking for inspiration. I was sitting here because I was waiting for you. The reason the snow looked so beautiful to me... The reason the curving of the street made my heart beat anxiously... The very sight before my eyes became special because of my feelings for you.”

It was all because of Akira. His presence was the missing ingredient that completed the image in his heart.

“You know, whoever looks at your painting might see it differently,” Akira said.

An astute observation.

Yusuke nodded. “I know that now. But if they also have someone they love, then they might understand. I don't expect everyone to always understand me or my work. A feeling like this seems rare. It's special. I'm happy to be understood by even just one person.” Looking deeply into Akira's eyes, he smiled. “I'm glad you exist.”

“I-It's not _my_ birthday, you know.”

“Seriously,” Morgana said. “Save a cheesy line like that for when it's Akira's birthday.”

Akira bopped Morgana on the head. “Hey, don't call it cheesy. I thought that was pretty touching. It was touching, wasn't it?”

As the two quarreled over something so silly, Yusuke watched with an amused smile. Since they arrived, he hadn't thought about the cold at all. The moment didn't make him feel so sentimental that he could say that it made him forget about the cold _completely,_ of course. That would have been unrealistic. The tips of his fingers were most definitely going to become frostbitten if they stayed there for much longer. But he was too content, just sitting there, watching. He didn't want to move.

Without much thought, he slipped his hand into Akira's palm.

All of a sudden, both Akira and Morgana stopped their bantering.

“What is it?” Yusuke asked.

Morgana chuckled secretively and dove back into the bag. With a shake of his head, Akira put it back over his shoulder and got up, pulling Yusuke along with him.

“You haven't changed,” he said, his voice a little distant as if thinking out loud.

The warmth in his fond expression filled Yusuke's chest with a tangible heat. As Akira leaned in, lashes lowered, Yusuke instinctively closed his eyes and received the softness of his lips. That simple touch inspired the most remarkable feeling. It was a feeling he could find nowhere else. Whenever their lips parted, it remained with him and only seemed to become stronger every time their lips reunited.

As he began to back away, he was pulled back in, wrapped tightly in Akira's arms. For a moment, he stood there, expecting Akira to say something, but he never did.

Really... He didn't need a gift.

“Akira...”

He softly returned his embrace, sliding his hands over Akira's back.

Just that. It was so much more than he could've ever hoped for – someone who loved him enough to count that day as something special and worth remembering, who would cross miles at any hour and suffer the cold just to see him before that day could end.

He was glad that day existed, too.

For as ugly, unpleasant, and unfair as life could sometimes be, he was glad that day existed so that he could meet someone as brilliant as Akira who brought immense splendor to the other three hundred sixty-four. His old paintings filled with suppressed anger and anguish had been turned into ones that dared to display a world painted in love's colors.

“I wonder, if we hadn't met-...”

 

_Would I have ever known this feeling?_

 

_Would the snow be as beautiful?_

 

_Would I even still be here?_

 

It didn't feel right to even imagine such things anymore, but Yusuke silently acknowledged those thoughts and felt grateful for the way they had become unnecessary. He let them go, exhaled as another white breath that dispersed into the falling snow around them.

Akira released him, but he stayed close, holding Yusuke's hand. “Would you like to go to Leblanc? You know... To visit the _Sayuri_? I'm staying over at Sojiro and Futaba's tonight since all my stuff got moved out of the attic, but we can still get in, even if we get there after it closes. What do you say?”

Yusuke lightly squeezed Akira's hand.

“I'd like that.”


End file.
